hit and run....

ok, so like this commercial

vinyl....

ok, so.....i took the facebook bait today and posted my top 5 favorite albums of all time...well...six after i added aqualung by jethro tull.....and the curious thread linking them all together?......i own them all on vinyl as well as cd....the vinyl dating back from before i met my spouse...which either means that i have classic taste in music...who can argue against led zeppelin IV as the best album of all time?.....or that i am hopelessly lost in the 70's......

head in the sand.....

ok, so i am avoiding the daily dialogue about the recession by listening to borrowed books in cd from the library....i have listened to a few cozy british murder mysteries, and am now back to hercule poirot.....yes, hercule is also quite cozy and therefore not much of a change at all....i have read so many of this series over the years, and have seen so many televised adaptations, that i am amusing myself by trying to figure out the killer in a work i have already seen, heard or read at some point.....i simply haven't remembered that little detail at this point....so for the time being it is like new to me....and i very much appreciate the entertainment value in these troubled times: free and easily accessible escape.....

billy g......

ok, so i was in the beaumont plaza goodwill in lexington when the banter at the checkout turned loudly to the breaking news....the coach billy g. was out.....the clerk at the counter had already heard the news, and with crossed fingers in the air wished for uk to bring back coach p.......the customer awaiting his credit card receipt laughed....and replied with a story that i had never heard before....'didn't you know that the girl he (coach p)got pregnant lives in that subdivision just across the road?.......he'll not be coming back to these parts'.......ooops........the conversation turned to just how badly uk had treated billy g....by not giving him a real chance because he was stuck with the team that tubby recruited.....by the time i had checkout with my own purchases billy g was being nominated for semi-sainthood for managing to take a mediocre team to the NIT.....go figure....

top 50 food blogs

ok, so this link is from the huffington post......

rain, rain and more rain.....

ok, so the rain continues.....and while i welcome the timely moisture for the grass seed in the front yard.....i do wish that the rain coincided with the opportunity to go back to bed and really enjoy the rain...i sleep ever so soundly with a raindrops on the windows and roof.....

a scary anti-smoking ad....

ok, so....

last lyrics of the day....

ok, so this was read at our wedding....a poem/song by judy collins recorded by dan fogelberg and tim wiesburg.....

Since You Asked

What I'll give you since you asked
Is all my time together
Take the ragged sunny days
The warm and rocky weather
Take the roads that I have walked along
Looking for tomorrows time
Peace of mind

As your life fills into mine
Changing with the season
Filling up the world with time
Changing time to reasons
I can show you all the songs
That I never sang to someone before

We have seen a millions stars
Lying by the water

You have climbed the hills with me
To the mountain shelter
Taking off the days one by one
Setting them to breathe in the sun

Take the lilies and the lace
From the days of childhood
All the willow winding back
Leading up and outward
This is what I give, this is what I ask you for
Nothing more

last hymn of the day....

ok, so this hymn reminds me of spring....and of my grandmother's country church.....where we sat half-way back and to the right...and the lady who always sat in front of grandma had hair the color of daffodils.....into her golden years.... i suppose she figured that yellow was as good a color to choose at the beauty parlor as any other....my grandma loved this song....we sang it at her funeral....well...everybody except me...because our eldest was a 2-week old infant...and he got hungry about the time this hymn came around.....others sang it as i hurried my sweet baby out the back door.....

In The Garden
(written by C. Aus­tin Miles)Verse 1:
I come to the garden alone,
while the dew is still on the roses.
And the voice I hear, falling on my ear,
the Son of God discloses.

Chorus:
And He walks with me,
and He talks with me,
and He tells me I am His own;
and the joy we share as we tarry there,
none other has ever known.

Verse 2:
He speaks and the sound of His voice,
is so sweet the birds hush their singing,
and the melody that He gave to me
within my heart is ringing.

Chorus

Verse 3:
I`d stay in the garden with Him
though the night around me be falling,
but He bids me go; through the voice of woe
His voice to me is calling.

Chorus

another favorite hymn

ok, so...this hymn has been in my mind this day...

Be Thou My Vision

Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.
Thou my best Thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Be Thou my Wisdom, and Thou my true Word;
I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord;
Thou my great Father, I Thy true son;
Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.

Be Thou my battle Shield, Sword for the fight;
Be Thou my Dignity, Thou my Delight;
Thou my soul’s Shelter, Thou my high Tower:
Raise Thou me heavenward, O Power of my power.

Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,
Thou mine Inheritance, now and always:
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of Heaven, my Treasure Thou art.

High King of Heaven, my victory won,
May I reach Heaven’s joys, O bright Heaven’s Sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.

Dal­lan For­gaill (translated from the Irish by
Ma­ry E. Byrne, Versified by El­ea­nor H. Hull)

lyrics

ok, so there is a commercial out now that blends old and new versions of one of my favorite songs.....in case you cannot hear the lyrics over the rhythm...

May God bless and keep you always,
May your wishes all come true,
May you always do for others
And let others do for you.
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young.

May you grow up to be righteous,
May you grow up to be true,
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you.
May you always be courageous,
Stand upright and be strong,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young.

May your hands always be busy,
May your feet always be swift,
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift.
May your heart always be joyful,
May your song always be sung,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young.

there is no better benediction......

wasted nights...

ok, so i wasted 4 perfectly good hours last evening attending a training put on by the red cross on how to open up a shelter.....mostly what the leader emphasized, along with story after story of her vast knowledge of shelter management, was that if there was another emergency like the ice storm we would all be on our own because she doesn't live or work in our county and she wouldn't be coming over to help us....this is how she handled the ice storm, so i suppose she is simply being consistent in how she doles out her vast knowledge.....

hot and cold....

ok, so.....the MM spent a miserable night vacillating between shivers and a hot sweat.....so very, very tiresome....

piscean dreams

ok, so....i drove to the grocery store in my dreams to buy formula and diapers for an unidentified baby living at my house....a curious place for a dream to start because i doubt that we ever needed to go out for these items, what with cloth diapers and breastmilk....but i digress.....the grocery store was multi-level, and i found myself in front of a special lenton fish display, with numerous variations of saltcod and retort pouch smoked salmon (pieces and entire sides)and sandwiches that a saleslady described as some local delicacy made by an ancient recipe.....these were flat-tish loaves sliced lengthwise....and one could not see the filling which led me to deduce that the inside was hollowed out somehow to accommodate some sort of fish and vegetable mixture.....my guess is tuna....though one shouldn't have to guess about one's own dreams.....

vatican to boycott angels and demons?

ok, so.. this from the huffington post....ROME -- The Vatican could be gearing up for an official call for a boycott of "Angels & Demons," Ron Howard's big-budget follow-up to "The Da Vinci Code."

Avvenire, the Vatican's official newspaper, ran a story in Friday's edition noting that the Church "cannot approve" of such a problematic film. The Turin daily La Stampa, meanwhile, said the Vatican would soon call for a boycott of the film, though the same article also quoted Archbishop Velasio De Paolis, who warned against a "boomerang effect" that could call attention to the film and eventually make it more popular.

How's about i go see the movie twice when it comes out in may to make up for the ticket the pope refuses to buy?

march madness

ok, so.....in the facebook brackets i currently have 23 points out of 30 possible points, and am ranked 64697th (top 18%).....i failed to foresee the osu loss to siena...ouch.....nor michigan's win over clemson.....nor gonzaga's win over akron.....just to name a few.....double ouch......i have louisville to win it all......a curious choice given r. pitino's interview last evening whereupon he resembled a gangster in his striped suit rather than a top-tier basketball coach.....despite my choice of l-ville to win it all, i still secretly hoped for morehead to blister l-ville......ah well......more b-ball to come today....but first i have my to-do list....i plan to start several annuals inside in those inflatable peat pots....i cleared the plant window in the guest room by consolidating the amarylis into a large single pot and moving them all into the back room where i can admire them readily until their blooming season has passed.....i have 2 white astilbe to plant by the pond, and a white clematis to plant on the fence near the oak-leaf hydrangea.....and i am going to dig up daylilies for a friend who has need of a mass of plants behind his garage......happy to oblige anybody who will take daylilies off my hands....and then i will pull up more wild onions.....and hopefully i will have completed my list by 4- when we plan to go to the cinema as a family and see duplicity.....a full day!

ok, so this excerpted from jezebel......In 2008, MIT Professor Dan Ariely got an unexpected thank-you for presenting at a conference: a Prada bag. Carrying the bag made him feel different. Special, even. So he decided to study branding and behavior.

Writes Jennifer 8. Lee for the New York Times' City Room blog,

In one of his studies, half of the 250 subjects were told that the designer glasses they were wearing were "real," while the other half were told they were wearing "counterfeits." They were told to do a number of tasks that seemed to be related to the glasses, like evaluating scenery. But tucked into the sequence was a math test. Researchers found that 60 percent of those who were wearing "counterfeit" glasses cheated, while only 20 percent of those wearing "real" glasses cheated.

Study participants also were given a financial incentive to lie about the location of circles in a series of visual puzzles — and those with the "fake" glasses lied both sooner and more often.

The Times draws the conclusion that buying counterfeit goods has a discernible corrosive effect on an individual's morality — that, in effect, wearing an item you know to be fake is like kryptonite for your sense of right and wrong. But can it really be that simple?

ok, so this drawing was in the washington post today, in an article about gardening on a budget......it pretty much sums up the money pit that my garden has become over the years.....i DO love my garden, but i suppose i could have squeezed out another trip to europe had i been more careful about plant buying, etc.....

hot and cold...

ok, so.....there are few things worse than spending a night in bed either far too hot or chilled to the point of shivering....i could use a nap right about now to even things out....

has it come to this?

ok, so this is a dutch bus-stop combined with an ad for a local gym....the sign actually registers the weight of the woman waiting for the bus.....

4 toothpicks

ok, so in my dreams i was summoned to spears lane...to a house that i know not to be a real fixture in the neighborhood...and i was instructed to bring my own toothpicks for the appetizers...so i brought 4, not wanting to appear greedy.....and there were cheese cubes, and bacon-wrapped scallops, and boiled shrimp.....and the television was on during this gathering...one of those room-size overthetop models......but i was too engrossed in what i could snatch up with my 4 toothpicks to notice what was playing....and the host (from my church choir....) asked if i had brought something to grill....and i took half a porkchop, in a baggie, from my purse.....i had not been instructed to bring something to grill...so i was a bit stunned to find a portion of a porkchop in my purse......and while i tended my bit of meat on the grill, i watched the neighbors who were out raking up the last of the storm debris..... and somehow i determined that the cadre of raking neighbors were republicans....no recollection how i made this determination while in dreamland....no recollection if i actually ate the porkchop.....

ok, so i have no earthly reason to post this photo, other than i find the image of einstein riding a bicycle amusing....

snailing

ok, so i just scored 62 points with this word on lexulous.......i am so thrilled, because it means i have a shot at finally winning a game.....i play with a cadre of skilled wordsmiths.....

march

ok, so last night at book club the book was march by geraldine brooks...ambitious as fan fiction goes.....and unusually successful given the pulitizer it received.......the story focuses on mr march, the father figure absent from the story line of little women louisa m. alcott would have appreciated the sequel/tandem time frame premise of this novel, as she herself wrote several sequels to her own works over her writing career.....she wrote little men under pressure from fans who wanted to know what happened to the march girls...louisa was cantankerous enough to marry jo off to a professor, and jo's intended (laurie) married her sister amy instead....the novel eight cousins was followed by rose in bloom.....i have inherited 10 alcott novels and short story collections...each a christmas gift to my mother and/or her sister in the 30's...our hostess for the evening, also an ohio native possesses a smaller yet just as dear stack of alcott's books. curiously, we were the only ones present who had read any books beyond little women.....ah well.....we move on to kafka on the shore.....which we promise to treat with reverence, as we are borrowing this volume from one of our dear children...

gardener's remorse....day 3....

ok, so....my aching muscles and joints are forgotten as i peruse the catalogs for the perfect rose bushes to plant in the newly cleared beds by the back fence.....hope springs eternal...

gardener's remorse- day 2...

ok, so....i 'went big' yesterday....as we say around here......with the hand trimmer's and later directing my spouse on the chainsaw....collectively we beat back the natural flora so that the roses along the back fence could thrive once more.....given that the back fence separates our yard from the cliff....and the abyss.....this is easier said than done.....a yearly event that must take place before the weather warms up enough to draw the snakes out of their winter hidey-holes.....again, great things were accomplished, but at great peril, and this morning........it is with great pain and moaning that i sit here typing....i somehow jammed a finger...and it is red and swollen...and sure to remind me of just how much physical effort went into my gardening weekend....

gardener's remorse....

ok, so...i woke up this morning to a collection of painful joints and muscle groups...clearly, gardening is much more strenuous than many contact sports....

limbaugh crosses the delaware...

ok, so....pay special attention to the big fat idiot in the back of the boat....

playing in the dirt....

ok, so.....i bought straw, grass seed, rose food, perennial food, and new gloves......and set to work......being more of a plant person and less of a grass person, i started with the fertilizer and moved on to ripping out invasive lamb's ear.....and by the time my spouse came home from work i had not yet started to prep the yard for the grass seed.....ah well.....

the library

ok, so.....my saturday trip to the library was rife with activity well beyond the selection of reading/listening/viewing materials....the conversation that went on behind my back as i anguished over the perfect book-on-cd for my trips this week to louisville and frankfort was curious- a man and woman (long-lost lovers?)went into great detail about the exact detail of current living arrangements...in such detail that i could probably find my way to both homes if push came to shove.....way too much information...and then there was the woman at the checkout explaining just where in her home she had searched for the missing book in question....the notion that this woman managed to get that far under her own bed was amusing.....and then there was the look of utter exhaustion on the face of the father of a sadly departed classmate of one of my children......who appeared as reluctant to socialize as i was to ask him how he is doing.......and then there was the unexpected vision of pure joy......as a couple i know vaguely lifted their grandson out of his car seat, and each held a hand as he toddled between them to the door....oh my...may i be lucky enough to be in their shoes one day.....

to sleep perchance to dream...

ok, so......i clearly recall waking up in the middle of the night- to the sound of the cat clawing the carpeting.....and the first thing that popped into my head was a variation on an old song....'it's my friday and i'll cry if i want to'......this phrase had nothing to do with the dream sequence interrupted so rudely by the cat...it involved selling raffle tickets that i made myself with ms publisher and purchased card stock......it was the trying to figure out what the crying part meant that kept me briefly awake when the cat moved on with her mischief......who knows why the unconscious mind conjures up what it manages to conjure up....i may change my facebook sentiment to reflect the friday nature of menopause....sounds like the most plausible explanation.....

mr. pitt goes to washington

ok, so brad pitt had a private audience with mr obama today at the white house....presumably about mr pitt's sustainable housing project in new orleans 9th ward.....

waste of time

ok, so....i took the time to watch the wildcat's last home game.....what a waste of time.....no chance of a being on anybody's tourney bubble now....

peeps contest

ok, so the washington post is hosting its 3rd annual peeps contest...deadline is 3/15/09...so not much time to create the definitive peeps diarama...the peeps photo in this blog is called...please mommie- no more wire hangers.....

2 solid months...

ok, so i have walked a mile day for 2 months....that is all....

a wild onion sort of day....

ok, so yesterday, after church and before walking on the treadmill.....i decided to pull the returning clumps of wild onions.....those that have sprung up since the last time i pulled onions.....the weather and soil conditions were perfect......they came up in lovely earthen clumps.......this means nothing in the long run, sadly....as entire clumps seem to spring from single springs left behind from the grasping of clumps.....i have said this before, but it needs to be said again.....that after 26 years of pulling onions from these beds there really should be no onions left.....

handel

ok so......i sat through unfamiliar handel last night at centre....kept wishing they'd break into a few selections from the messiah....